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Cadet Blizzard is a Russian state-linked threat actor associated with cyberespionage and disruptive operations, particularly against Ukraine since at least 2021. The cluster is tracked under numerous aliases including Ember Bear, Saint Bear, UAC-0056, DEV-0586, TA471, UNC2589, Lorec53, Bleeding Bear, and Storm-0587. Reporting also links Cadet Blizzard to Russian military structures, including GRU affiliation and later association with Unit 29155. The actor is known for spearphishing and other initial-access operations targeting Ukrainian government and related entities, followed by deployment of custom and commodity tooling. Observed malware and tooling associated with this actor include WhisperGate, OutSteel, SaintBot, GrimPlant, GraphSteel, Pandora hVNC, RemoteUtilities, and Cobalt Strike. Campaigns have used malicious Office documents with macros, embedded objects, shortcut files, JavaScript, PowerShell, fake software updates, and payload staging through public services. The group has also been observed acquiring malware and related tools from dark web forums. Cadet Blizzard has conducted both espionage and sabotage-oriented activity. It is publicly associated with the WhisperGate campaign, a destructive operation masquerading as ransomware that overwrites the master boot record, disables or impairs defensive controls, and corrupts files rather than encrypting them for recovery. Separate phishing campaigns attributed to the actor delivered backdoors and stealers used to collect host information, documents, browser and mail credentials, Wi-Fi data, SSH keys, and other credential material. The actor has also been observed dumping configuration data from compromised IP cameras, including plaintext credentials. Operationally, the group demonstrates capabilities spanning initial access, persistence, credential theft, exfiltration, defense evasion, and post-compromise command execution. Persistence has included autorun mechanisms and startup execution. Defense evasion has included AMSI bypass, disabling PowerShell logging, packing and obfuscation, use of trusted binaries, and attempts to weaken or disable Microsoft Defender. Post-compromise activity has included remote command execution, deployment of multiple redundant backdoors, and use of Cobalt Strike for follow-on access. Targeting has centered on Ukrainian government organizations, public authorities, and other Ukrainian entities, with additional activity reported against Georgian government agencies and at least one Ukrainian media organization. The actor’s behavior aligns primarily with Russian intelligence objectives, combining intelligence collection with disruptive effects in support of broader state interests.
Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
Geographies tied to known operations.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
48 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
22 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
17 additional families tracked in Mallory.
12 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 12 of them exploited in the wild.
...has exploited Office vulnerabilities such as CVE-2017-11882...
BlackByte exploited vulnerabilities such as ProxyLogon and ProxyShell for initial access... Magic Hound has exploited ... on-premises MS Exchange servers via "ProxyShell" (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207)... Ember Bear ... CVE-2022-41040, ProxyShell, and other vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange.
Ember Bear ... CVE-2022-41040 ... in Microsoft Exchange... Play ... CVE-2022-41082 and CVE-2022-41040 ("ProxyNotShell") in Microsoft Exchange.
This detection identifies instances where Windows Explorer.exe spawns PowerShell or cmd.exe processes, particularly focusing on executions initiated by LNK files. This behavior is associated with the ZDI-CAN-25373 Windows shortcut zero-day vulnerability, where specially crafted LNK files are used to trigger malicious code execution through cmd.exe or powershell.exe. This technique has been actively exploited by multiple APT groups in targeted attacks through both HTTP and SMB delivery methods.
Ember Bear has used exploits for vulnerabilities such as MS17-010, also known as Eternal Blue, during operations.
7 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
367 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Cyberespionage activity targeting Ukrainian entities via spear-phishing emails with macro-embedded Excel documents that drop multi-stage malware; the group is also described as having conducted wiper/disruptive attacks against Ukrainian government entities.
Listed as a threat actor associated with the generic installation exploitation analytic, but no campaign-specific activity is described in this reference.
Mentioned only as one of many threat actors associated with the ATT&CK technique/detection annotation for automated collection using Windows dir piped to findstr.
Listed as one of many threat actors associated with the detection's ATT&CK-style annotations for PowerShell and DNS TXT command-and-control behavior; no specific campaign or activity is described in this reference.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.